Too Late
by Lady of the Phoenix
Summary: After the showdown on the Meteor, Gamzee starts to change. In the course of a sweep and a half, who is to say what he becomes. Based on the S A6I3 Part II game, and art by Caledscratch.


Notes: This comes from update feels, a bit of art by Caledscratch, and a carefully crafted music playlist meant to make me have the feels necessary to do this bit of writing. The update you can get on your own. To see the art, please send me a PM and I'll send you a link, and if you want a list of the music, just ask and I'll share the songs and why I used them.

* * *

Too Late

This was a moment of true bliss for Gamzee. One of few he'd had since he'd been abandoned by his lusus sweeps ago. Here he lay, quiet, peaceful, all up and soothed in Karkat's arms as his new moirail slowly but surely cleaned the wicked cuts on his face. Karkat's touches are gentle, as gentle as they call up and can be when a brother is wiping some viciously stinging and wretched smelling shit all up and over your face. Everything about this whole thing was wrong—that he'd almost killed this wicked motherfucker; that he'd actually killed two others; that his thoughts kept darting towards this odd, vibrant green and white void that flashed in pan—and yet it was so right. Finally he was all up and being held by the one that mattered most. It was a relief, one he'd wanted more than anything else. One he was going to hold on to no matter what came next in his hellish void they were hurtling through.

Karkat was warm, like a motherfucking bake box, a miraculous kind of heat that never ceased to make Gamzee wonder after just what his brother was all up and hiding. Then again, maybe it was best that he didn't know. Better that he not risk losing control of the tenuous hold he'd regained over his mind. Risk letting loose the parts of him that thought that he was something more than a troll lost in a world he couldn't even up and understand. He didn't want to be that troll anymore, never wanted to be that troll again. Two, three, more and more lives and colors on his hands. No, better not to think about it, to give himself over to the sting because it was better than getting caught up in the urge to paint with the only colors readily at hand.

"I never should have let us play this game," Karkat was grumbling as he worked. "Should have believed it when I was told it was going to end the fucking world. Now see where we are because of it. More than half of us dead, and by our own damn hands. What was the point?"

"Naw, man, don't even get all up and like that," Gamzee whispered, not even able to force the old lilting style into his voice. Which was a real shame, because Karkat flinched whenever he spoke now, as if afraid that he couldn't even keep control over his own pan anymore. Well, Gamzee had every intention of breaking his moirail of the flinch one day. Of making him all up and believe that things were better now. Because they were. They were so much.

"Think about it, this thing is still better than what we were getting, right? I mean, Alternia was destroyed with the meteors. And it's not like you fit in there anyway."

Karkat winced at that, flinched even, and pressed the stinging cloth too hard into one of the cuts. That got Gamzee to honk in protest, and earned him a glare from his moirail. Apparently Karkat wasn't going to be having any of that either. Well hell. What did a motherfucker want?

"What do you mean by that?" Karkat demanded, quickly pulling the cloth away.

"Well, you never seemed like you did. Seemed like you didn't want to either. Like you were just separate, different, and waiting for something to prove that you were better."

"That doesn't mean I wanted to give up everything I had, everything all of us had, to get recognition."

"Except by doing that, you all up and pressed us forward into the game. You saved our lives. Maybe it's more than some of us deserved, but..."

"No," Karkat snapped, loud enough to make Gamzee want to all up and cover his ears. Sometimes his best friend just didn't even seem to understand how to keep his voice under control. "No, don't you even fucking say that. Don't you imply it or even think it. Things have happened, yeah, but that is no reason for you to say that. We're here, we're alive, and I'm going to keep us all that way. ALL of us, Gamzee. All of us that are left anyway."

All Gamzee could do was sigh. There as no point in arguing with his moirail. None at all. No matter what he said, how he said it, Karkat didn't listen. Wouldn't hear the apologizes. Wouldn't listen to the explanations. He just shooshed and papped the second Gamzee began to hint at anything important. It almost made Gamzee angry, to be lying here in his moirail's lap in a horn pile, and not even being allowed to get his feelings on. There were no jams here, of the feeling or fruity variety. Karkat didn't want them. Wasn't ready for all the wicked truths that Gamzee was learning. Learned from watching the vast void of the veil. Learned from listening to the whispers in his pan. Learned by letting the flashing green-white point in his head talk and talk and talk until it filled him up to the brim with ideas.

Sometimes he felt like he was going to be carried away by the rush of the talk and ideas, carried away on a tide of lies until there was nothing left in him but the demon he'd become, the troll that had blood on his hands. He wanted Karkat to know. Wanted the motherfucker to soothe away the lies, to shout away the dark echoes of chucklevoodoos and the mirthful messiahs in his pan. Because the more the shadows could talk, the less he felt like himself. Wasn't it Karkat's place to make sure he held together? To be the glue that put his pan back together and sealed out the wicked untruths? To make him believe only in the world that was their meteor flying through the darkness, to an ending that no one but a seer could know.

"Yeah, brother, I all up and got that," Gamzee whispered, finally raising a hand to stave off yet another cloth soaked in the abomination fluid of stinging pain. Fuck that shit. Better to get some infection and let it finish rotting him, inside and out, than to put up with it anymore.

"Gamzee, I promise you, we're getting out of this. I don't know how, but Rose seems to think there's a way, and like hell if I don't believe her. I hate to have to rely on them for rescue, but the other option is that we face Jack and..."

"We aren't ready to do that kind of shit," he agreed, nodding carefully so his horns neither hit Karkat nor got tangled in the loops and bells horn piles were prone to.

"This game wasn't supposed to be like this," Karkat started to growl, half under his breath. "It was supposed to be hard, but not this complicated. Fuck. We weren't ready for this. Nothing could have made us ready for this."

"Hindsight is all up and perfect, my pale brother. It's foresight that's the hard part."

"Yeah. I know that. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't have seen this coming."

What he really meant, and Gamzee knew it, was that he shouldn't have let it happen. Shouldn't have had that moment where he froze at the door to their prize, utterly wrapped up in the wonderful miracles of the moment. A heart beat away from what they'd been promised, what they'd earned. What they'd bought with blood and sweat and gears—though really only Aradia played the last part of the price. Sometimes Gamzee wondered just how much more they'd paid. Aradia had told him, tried to tell him, more than once, that there were hundreds of other timelines out there. Choices they didn't make, choices they made wrong, everything they did lead to a splitting, like some wicked maze that never stopped growing. How many of those timelines had he died in? Karkat? Aradia hadn't seemed to have died in any, because all of the hers had shown up to fight in the end. And only one of them survived the fight with that Jack thing. Gave all her lives timelines over to give Karkat the chance to lead them to the one life that was right. And for what? Six and a half dead, or was it a full on eight now? All that blood spent—wasted—for the lives of only four? Was it really worth it? What had they bought with their lives? Sorrow, pain, a point where you either had to scream to be heard, or whisper and try to pretend that nothing was whispering back.

"You make miracles, my motherfucking brother, but not the kind you're talking about. Even the Messiahs themselves couldn't give us that kind of miracle."

"Never speak of them again, Gamzee. Promise me that."

With a sigh Gamzee promised, and then shifted free of Karkat as his new moirail started to get all up and fidgety, like he didn't want to be there anymore. There was some excuse, one that barely even registered, as Karkat stood and turned to leave. Gamzee smiled as wide as he could, faking the mirth, as the pitiful motherfucker just all up and walked out of the room he'd said Gamzee was supposed to 'hide' in. Said it was for his safety because Kanaya was getting all wicked righteous on people who murdered motherfuckers. Which was ridiculous because he doubted she was going to go after Terezi, but she seemed to have no trouble wanting Gamzee's head. Funny shit, that. And so, as Karkat went off to do something, probably freak out over the humans who were now on this miserable rock, Gamzee stretched back out on the pile of horns and sighed.

In some corner of his mind he found himself wondering why Karkat had even bothered to save him, if his best friend was just going to leave him alone here to go off and be a motherfucking leader. Didn't it even matter to him that Gamzee had been that close to smashing his head in with his clubs? No, it didn't seem to. Had it even occurred to Karkat that such a thing were possible? That it was how Gamzee had planned for it to go down, or at least how the green-white void in his mind had planned for it to happen. No, Karkat had always had some kind of faith in him, or maybe faith in the idea that he could stop the bloodshed.

If only Gamzee could have lived up to what Karkat had faith in. If only he didn't have memories of trying to paint all kinds of wicked rainbows on the walls of the lab, with whatever mystery color that was Karkat's blood being the centerpiece. If only he could have been, in that moment, the troll that Karkat thought he was, or that Karkat wanted him to be. Instead he was here now, trapped in the silence of the truth, wishing with all his might that he could forget the truth of what he had meant. Let the pain of memory melt away from his pan as if it was never there, like his lusus had melted away from their hive and hadn't returned until his death.

And another part of his mind, it wished that it could have kept Karkat afraid of him. Because the shadows kept whispering in his mind, the green-white void kept throbbing, and they both kept demanding that he act as he should. Maybe, if in that moment fear had won out over the need to protect life or whatever, maybe Karkat could have lived without regret. The motherfucker was blaming himself, and Gamzee could see that so clearly. His palebro all blaming himself for not seeing it sooner, for not having managed to save Equius and Nepeta. Filled up with all kinds of regret that made their moiralliegence not the purest kind of pale it could have been.

But no, there was no point in even giving any of it a turning over in his pan. The past was set in stone for everyone but a time hero. So Gamzee had to deal with things in his own way. Had to help his moirail in the only way he knew. Maybe later he'd have the privilege of looking back and realizing just where he had to go from here, but for now all he had to act on was instinct. Carefully he pushed himself up in the horn pile and made himself comfortable as he sat, back to the wall the pile was built against. His eyes closed, his fingers interlaced, and his pan all up and focused, Gamzee turned his thoughts inward. Turned himself towards the faces of the shadows and the green-white void, shielding himself with all the force that his chucklevoodoos could manage. It was time to fight, for Karkat, for his dreams, for all of them.

Not for himself, but for Karkat, he would face down the voices. Whether he had to beat them into submission or steal what he wanted bit by bit, he was going to figure this out. Figure out what had pushed him to what he'd done, figure out what the void wanted, figure out how to fight. How to save them. How to save Karkat.

He had to change whatever future the void had planned for them. And if he didn't do it now, he wasn't sure he would ever be able to face the thing that had made him into a subjuggulator for a brief, terrifying time.

* * *

It's been a sweep since they'd seen each other, and Karkat doesn't really seem to have changed. He's still loud and shouting. He's still worried about things that aren't even motherfucking important. He still believes there's some kind of hope out here in the blackness, rather than submission to the forces beyond that will kill him before letting him fight. In a way, Karkat's more pathetic than ever, but for some reason Gamzee can't bring himself to pity the loud motherfucking in that way anymore. Two sweeps and all the secrets of the universe, and suddenly Gamzee can't feel pale for him anymore. Can't feel pale for anything or anyone. It's as if all the pity was drained out of him by the void and shadows, leaving behind only this shell that moves and talks and acts like Gamzee Makara, but has never really known what it was like to be him.

Yet when Karkat smiles, shakes his head all wise like, and wraps his arms around Gamzee, for a moment he can almost feel the warmth of the old feelings being rekindled. In those arms he's almost comfortable, warm, willing to melt away all the cold outside and just become a true echo of a troll he used to know, used to be. Karkat, here and now, makes Gamzee want to shout his refusal at the darkness, at the void of green-white malice, and chase the memories of who he was when he didn't know any better, didn't know the wicked truths that cut him to the bone. For a moment all Gamzee wants to do is close his eyes and revel in the memories of the time when, for a perigee, he had been Karkat's, only Karkat's.

Gamzee smiles, takes the chance to ruffle a wicked motherfucker's hair, and keeps the smile in place as his not-rail releases him, looking a mix of angry and overjoyed.

"Where in the fucking name of all hell have you been? You disappeared."

"Aw, brother, ain't been much of nowhere," Gamzee lied easily, far too easily for his comfort. For a moment he was afraid that Karkat would see right through it, see through him in a way he was never able to before but always should have been. Would see there was something wrong and would refuse to let him go until he smoothed back over all the rough spots in his mind with soothing words with no meaning behind them.

Except Karkat sighs, shaking his head like he should have expected the response, and it's utterly clear as all motherfucking crystals that ever were clear that Karkat can't see there's so little left of the troll Gamzee used to be in this creature before him. All he sees is that old capricious motherfucker reflected on the surface of Gamzee's face, doesn't see all the cracks, all the wrong, below the surface. No, understanding by seeing is long since gone as a possibility. And Karkat can't fix what he can't see is broken. There's no hope, no salvation, from this avenue, so Gamzee lets it slid and turns his attention to the real reason why he'd come back. The reason he'd come to meet this motherfucker in his dreams rather than staying away, staying so motherfucking far away so that his shadows and green-white voids don't taint such a precious pan as his best friend's. All the time away to keep Karkat from learning how to read past the surface, back to whisper the truths, and yet he's still mourning that the motherfucker can't get below the reflections and know. Pathetic.

Not that letting Karkat know what was really going on would do anyone any good. It was beyond the point where the truth was worth much of anything. Truth wouldn't save them now. Lies only prolonged their lives, and Gamzee wouldn't trade them for anything. Not for all the promises in the void, all the whispered glory of the shadows.

Once, about half a sweep ago, Gamzee'd been tempted to come to Karkat and tell him what was going on, tell him about the green-white voice, about the things it wanted him to do. Tell him all the lies, tell him all the truth. In the end he'd realized that while the lies were, in and of themselves wrong, that didn't mean that the truth would make it any better. From what he'd heard, seen, Eridan had wised up to the truth as well, and all it had gotten him was death. Death and that of the silly little fish girl too. Had killed Kanaya, not that it'd kept that sister down. None of them could see the truth, and so Gamzee would give them—give Karkat—only lies. Because Karkat was still whole, or as close as they got to it these days, and it took something fucked up in the pan like Gamzee had to realize just how hopeless things were now. Hopeless beyond even the point where the Prince of Hope could have seen just how fucked they all were. The truth, it was just a terrible thing, better to let them embrace their last days in hope then have them squashed so recklessly by Gamzee.

And so he'd gone. Just disappeared one day, into the deepest, darkest parts of the meteor that no one else knew about. Places he'd learned of from the green-white, and filled with the shadows. Purple halls built like a place he had never known but used to be able to see from the veil, before Jack, before the shadows, before everything. He'd hidden, just as he was told, and learned at the foot of the forces that were inside of him, whispering him promises that were likely empty, but were their own kind of comfort. They said that if he just listened, if he just followed, they would give him what he wanted. What he wanted, Gamzee still hadn't decided, but damned if he wasn't going to make them live up to their promises.

"Well, it was a pretty fucking effective no where. But I'm glad you're back," Karkat said, even as he shrugged. "Better to see you than any of those fucking douchebags that are supposed to be our ancestors. Have you met any of them?"

Yes. Two. One knew it and bent the knee as the motherfucker should have, knowing the full glory of what had stood before him. The other he had taken by force, wrapping up in the glory of the voodoos, a perfect tool in that the mage had never known it. Funny, wasn't it, to have the prince and mage kneel to him rather than look down upon him for a change. They knelt when he spoke, they took his will as the testament of all their glory. Obedient. Powerful. Foolish.

"Not really," again he lied, again too easy. This time though, there was a small voice with it in his pan. The voice of the Gamzee that he was, not the Gamzee that he is. One pleading for Karkat to notice, to see through everything and stop this all. Trying to say that he'd tried to save them, tried to stop it, but he'd failed. Always failed. Had never been worth Karkat's attention. The Gamzee that is just pushed the voice aside, leaving it as a problem to be dealt with later. There was no place for that Gamzee, not in the here, not in the now. There hadn't even been a place for it in the past.

"Consider yourself lucky. Every time I run into mine I just want to jump out of a window to get away."

"Why?"

"He just won't shut up!"

It was tempting to laugh, to just laugh until he couldn't stop, but that wasn't the kind of thing the Gamzee that was would do. So the Gamzee that is just frowned, tilted his head a bit to the side and blinked a few times to try and sell the cluelessness.

"And?"

"You wouldn't even get it if I fucking had eternity to explain it to you. Which, contrary to Kankri's fucking beliefs, I don't."

In the end Karkat's got so motherfucking much to get off of his chest that the bubble they're in seems to remember up a pile of horns for them, and Gamzee gets his settle in on with his not-rail, listening as attentively as he could to all the drivel. What he really wants to do is smack Karkat across the face, screaming at him that he's fucking blind, that he can't even see that this isn't what they are anymore. That he doesn't listen with pity, that Karkat isn't talking like he needs help or advice or anything. They aren't this thing they are pretending to be, but they keep pretending anyway.

As they sit there, leaning against each other and pretending so hard that it almost feels real for a minute, Gamzee starts to see the changes in Karkat. The real changes. Somethings... more than just different. Something has started to break Karkat, in the tiny little ways that Gamzee can only notice because they exist inside himself. For one thing, a lot of the rough edges are gone, for all that Karkat tries to fake them. Some where in the time they'd been separated, something has found the strength to wear him down, and Gamzee suspects its a teal blooded bitch named Terezi. Something else he notices... at last he can see the wonders of Karkat's blood. His eyes are shot through with oh so thin streaks of crimson red, a color Gamzee had only seen before in Sollux and Terezi's eyes. The motherfucker still isn't letting himself sleep as much as he should be. The fatigue reveals the beautiful truth of his blood, of the secret he'd fought to keep for so long. This, then, was why Karkat didn't want anyone to know. Would have gotten him killed. Who then would have seen them all through, alive, until the point where everything crumbled. On the spot Gamzee decides that crimson was his new favorite color, and he leans in closer, listening to the mindless babble of his not-rail as if it all mattered. As if time wasn't running out, as if part of him wasn't furious that Karkat had never come searching for him, that Karkat had never saved him from himself.

Not that he'd want to be saved by a creature such as this. So soft, so sad, and so focused on other people. Had he always been like this? Gamzee wasn't sure anymore. All he knew now as that this wasn't the troll he'd been remembering for a sweep, hoping in some tiny corner of his pan that would save him. With that revelation the last little bit of the Gamzee that was seemed to die, even its foolish hopes finally crushed. Oh well, it wasn't even a loss that he cared to consider. Now he could get on with his work without regret, living his lie that was truth, believing in the powers that were so far beyond him. With Karkat so ruined, he didn't belong here anymore, in this world where he wondered how to defeat the things within him, wondered how to win them a perfect universe like they'd always been promised and deserved. Maybe he was on the wrong side of the fight, but he didn't care anymore. No reason to wake up ashamed, to hate the thing he saw in the mirror when he put on his facepaint. Finally he could accept the defeat of hope that he preached to his wicked servants, and move on to the victories he would win for himself.

"I've missed you, Gamzee. I wish you'd just come out from wherever you're hiding and join us again. Kanaya's pretty much given up on the whole..."

"I like my peace and motherfucking quiet, brother. It's like a grave, where I can remember the dead."

Karkat's gone stiff next to him, caught off-guard by the words. Not like he'd understand anyway. The motherfucker doesn't understand the wonder of being surrounded by the dead. At least they didn't whisper, shout, scream in his mind like the shadows and the green-white void. They demanded nothing of him, gave him the peace he desired, let him fall away from the pressures of the world whenever he came among them. One day Karkat would be among them as well, and he would understand the silence, the peace, the way worried faded away into nothing. But not today. Or tomorrow. Or even soon. The time would come when it came.

"Maybe it's not best for you to be there alone all the time."

"Maybe," Gamzee agrees, committing to nothing with the answer. "But brother, soon enough one of us will wake up and this moment will be gone, so can't we just all up and get our motherfucking enjoy on with it?"

Because this is probably the only chance he's got to do what he came here for. To take Karkat back with him, to take him away from everything that is coming. To shelter the motherfucker from the end of everything, his prize for service, for lack of service, for something he couldn't put into words but rolled around in his pan constantly. Pulling Karkat with him into the silence, the peace, and leave the doomed world to the will of the green-white void that called itself a lord. Save the knight so he didn't have to bow before the fate set for them. To float away from the threat of destruction, leave it and everything behind to have peace together, like Gamzee that was had wanted, like the Gamzee that is meant to accomplish.

To save Karkat, and in doing so save that little part of him left that had started this murderous loop in the first place.

"I guess we could do that. Though..." Karkat started to say, and Gamzee just papped the side of his face and hissed out a little shoosh. For a moment he wanted to stay in the peace, just in case this all failed, all faded away. Because if he didn't succeed here, it would stop being about helping Karkat, and have to be about fighting him. Something he'd never wanted to do. Not because he was afraid of losing, but because he hated the knowledge that he would win. And he would. There was no question in his mind.

Losing now meant fighting in the future. This was his first, last, only, chance to move them into checkmate at the point he wanted it.

"Hey, Karkat..."

"I thought you didn't want us fucking talking and wasting time."

"That was then. This is the motherfucking now. So just shut up and listen for once, okay?"

"For once? Gamzee, I always listen to your insane fucking rambling. Don't act like there haven't been plenty of nights of my life that I didn't waste just sitting around listening to you wax sickeningly poetic about your damn Faygo or your music or you miracles or..."

"Are you going to shut the motherfuck up or not?" he demands, unable to keep the sharp edge out of his voice this time. The familiar flinching is still there. Too bad he'd never taken the time to break Karkat of the habit. Still, it would be a good tell for the conversation ahead.

"You are? Good. Now, I just need you to listen and believe what I say, okay? Motherfucking clear? Good." Not that Gamzee really thought Karkat should believe everything he said. No, that would just be motherfucking wrong. He was a troll made of lies and power, and wasn't about to forsake that. But if Karkat didn't know not to believe everything he was told, well that was his problem. Gamzee'd already changed once for him, and he wasn't about to do it again.

But he's got what he wants, a captive motherfucking audience, the captive audience that he wants in the here and now. So he spills everything he can spare, painting a wicked picture all the colors of the hemospectrum with his words. He tells Karkat about his certainty that the path the humans are guiding them along is not the right one. How Jack is far from the most dangerous thing out there, and they're running straight into the arms of something far worse. Tells the motherfucker about how fighting isn't the answer, never was. The answer isn't running either, not really. It's living, hiding, embracing the time that's left because how do you even motherfucking run when death is already there? Several things don't come up, though. The whispers of shadows, the shouts of the green-white void. The fact that Gamzee doesn't regret the blood on his hands, and will spill more if only it can protect Karkat. Doesn't say that he's not pale for him anymore. Doesn't say that he isn't even sure why he's even trying. Doesn't mention Kurloz, or Meulin, or any other motherfucker.

And as Gamzee speaks, he feels Karkat pull away. Sees him start to look away. Sees the pity rekindle, fueled by some motherfucking belief that Gamzee's touched in the pan. It takes a lot not to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he really listens. But no, that wouldn't get him what he wanted, wouldn't get him any motherfucking thing, so he just sits there and keeps talking, knowing that when he stops this all ends. Knowing he can't keep living with the lie to himself that he even cares about saving Karkat.

Yet he still tries. Bitter, angry, hopeless he tries to save the life of the stupid motherfucker. Tries to make Karkat see that he knows best, knows better than that foolish seer, than either of the seers. They haven't seen the face of what is coming, whereas Gamzee knows it face, its voice, its will. It lives in a corner of his pan demanding everything, giving nothing, and it hurts. That, of course, he doesn't say, can't say, the void, the shadows won't let him. Gamzee begs, prods, wheedles even to try and get Karkat to understand. Repeating doesn't help, shouting doesn't help, neither does crying or pleading.

So it comes to the point where there is nothing left to say, and already Gamzee can see Karkat fading around the edges like motherfuckers do when they start to wake up. All he can do is give the offer he already knows is going to be rejected. Voice low and soft Gamzee gives Karkat the only choice he can.

"Come with me. Leave the rest behind."

Karkat shakes his head, promises to meet you here next sleep cycle, and fades away completely. He isn't the same troll he was a sweep ago, but neither is Gamzee. Even if they were, Karkat wouldn't have agreed, and as much as it pains Gamzee to admit it, there was never any real hope. How was a not-rail supposed to pry their ex-pale away from the hopes he had of finally winning his flushcrush to him? Karkat would face the jaws of death itself for the teal bitch, and while Gamzee hates her for it, he can't blame Karkat. She was always more stable, more reliable, better for him. But she was also, is also, blind. She can't save him from what is coming, no more than Gamzee could have.

And as he too abandons the dream bubble, knowing he'll never return, Gamzee has to wonder why he even came there, why he even tried.

* * *

For a half a sweep Gamzee has been avoiding this place, this bubble, a silent promise to himself that he wasn't going to try again on a lost cause. Yet, here he was, on the eve of the meteor's entrance into the new session, and at last he hadn't been able to hold back anymore. Hadn't been able to resist the urge to try, one last time. Just once more, then let the pieces fall as they might.

It's a beautiful dream, just like it was last time before his presence forced Karkat to remember it as something else, as the room he used to hide Gamzee in. An Alternian sunset, Karkat looking out at its softened, non-blinding and non-scalding heat from the safe shade of the trees he'd dreamed up. The trees are different this time, just a bit, but a noticeable bit. They aren't Terezi's trees anymore, a clear sign that whatever else had changed, he'd let go of trying to cling to her so powerfully. But there is still the hint of her here. Instead of blue the bark is a blue tinted purple, and its waxing positively fuchsia in the fading light. The leaves that fall, slowly and softly to the ground are a vibrant cyan, perfect against the yellow-orange sky. And taking it all in is the silhouette of a troll that Gamzee used to... Used to what? He can't even motherfucking remember anymore. Were they friends? Quadrants? Black or red? Ashen or pale? All of it is gone now. What he does remember is that this was the motherfucker he'd been fighting for so long. He remembered the red-shot eyes. Remembered trying so hard to get him to understand, to hide, to flee, to do anything other than throw his life away so needlessly.

Gamzee had tried to make him understand. Now, as he strode slowly, purposefully, quietly towards the smaller troll, he had to wonder if it had been pointless. If it was pointless. Yet he still reaches out, still places a hand on Karkat's shoulder, still holds still as a statue as the motherfucker jumps a little in shock. Then Karkat has turned, is looking at him, and it all comes back with the exasperated smile. Everything they were, everything they could have been, everything Gamzee had been trying to accomplish in the name of this clueless, cold pushered motherfucker.

"Gamzee. I've been waiting for you to finally fucking show up for a while now."

He acts like you haven't been avoiding him for half a sweep, for two and a half sweeps, forever, and like everything can go back to the way it was. For a moment he almost seems to believe it. Then he's looking at Gamzee hard, so hard, so confused, as if he's finally seeing, finally getting his understand on. Looking from the scars cut into Gamzee's face, to the whimsical streamers that flow from below his hood, to the symbol of rage, all the way down to the codpiece and the pointed shoes before it. Eyes widen with realization, and perhaps a little fear. But Karkat's good, has always been good, at hiding. If not from himself, then from everyone else at least, and so suddenly he's smiling again and happy that Gamzee is finally 'back.' Ignoring everything about Gamzee that screams that he isn't.

"Come with me," Gamzee asks. No. Demands. "I promise your last days will be nothing but peace."

"Gamzee, what are you even fucking talking about?"

"I need to know if you'll motherfucking come with me. I need to know tonight, before you wake up. I need to know now."

"I don't understand. What's the rush? We're about to go into the scratched session. With the others we'll have plenty of time to..."

"There is no more time," Gamzee growls, taking Karkat by the shoulders like he had wanted to last time and shaking him. "Get that through your thick motherfucking pan. The second you go the fuck out there, you're dead. They're dead. Everyone is fucking dead. Why the fuck have you even been trying to run? He's already there. He's always been already there. Don't you even motherfucking get it?"

There's fear there now, in those wide eyes. The last time Gamzee saw that was the night he'd tried—failed—to kill this stupid motherfucker. Lot of good it had done him.

"What..."

"You can't get it back, Karkat. It's all motherfucking gone. No more Beforus. No more Alternia. No more Earth. No more any motherfucking thing. You've wasted all this motherfucking time you could have had to have quiet and peace. At least let me give you something better than what he will. A night, a week, a perigee of peace before he takes everything we have and then some."

"Gamzee, what are you even fucking..."

The sentence is cut off as Gamzee whirls, dragging Karkat with him, and slams the smaller troll bodily into the nearest tree. There's a gasp of pain—something Gamzee should have heard a sweep and a half earlier as he crushed the motherfucker's head with his clubs—and even eyes going wider than even imaginable. It's hardly surprising. Gamzee knows the look on his face. He isn't the troll Karkat knew, Karkat expected, and can't be that anymore. That motherfucking idiot died two and half sweeps ago when he turned in on his own pan, thinking that his pathetic chucklevoodoos could do anything to protect him from the voice of the green-white void, the whispers of the shadows, the will of the Lord of Time. The one, the true, the only messiah, mirthful or otherwise, that was to be had. And Gamzee was, ever had been, his tool. Gamzee that was, Gamzee that is, and Gamzee that would be were all bound up in the voices and whispers and wills that weren't his own, had never been his own. This, this moment here, like the moments before it, were the only things that could be claimed as Gamzee's. This mindless drive to protect one of the only things that had ever been good to him. Pointless, all pointless, but even now Gamzee didn't want to admit it. Wanted to grab this precious moment and hide it away, hope that Caliborn would let him keep it as his reward for being so good, such a perfect little tool.

To think that at one point in his life, he'd truly believed. Believed in wonder, whimsy, mirth. Pathetic, disgusting, weak, foolish ideas that had lead him nowhere. They'd given him moments, just moments, where he could be well and truly innocent. No touch of what a troll should be within him. No urge for blood and destruction. No mind to just rip out the throat of the disgusting mutant before him. Maybe if he'd known back then, he would have laid in a larger stock of sopor, to stay in his whimsical dreaming just a bit longer, to have more moments, more memories, more of a base to work with when it came to saving this fucking idiot.

But no, it was a pointless desire. The past was the past. He could travel there, touch it, work in it, but never change it. It only made doomed timelines, gained him nothing. And yet he'd gone back, time after time, to try and save him. Save doomed Karkats in hopes that one would listen, would give in, would come with him instead of throwing himself blindly away. None of them would, though. None of them saw just what he'd become until it was too late. Too late to save them, to save him, to save anything. And with each try Gamzee had felt the burn growing to save the one, the alpha, the important version. It was a burning under his skin, injected every time he looked at a Karkat, every time they spoke, every time he looked at the pathetic motherfucker and wondered 'what if?'

There were no more what ifs now, though. There was no time for them. Karkat would either come or he would die. The story ended, with a pointless finale that left no one satisfied but Caliborn. Sick motherfucker liked sad endings, didn't he? How long would that motherfucking bastard laugh, how many times would he watch this unfold to see how pathetic his servant was in trying to win this one, pointless victory for himself?

"Can't you even motherfucking see it? Fuck, brother, you're as blind as the wicked sister you claim to pity. This doom we're riding in, brother, that's all up and on your mutant blooded hands. You should have opened the motherfucking door. Now you're all going to fucking die, and it's your fault. My fault. Everyone's motherfucking fault. He's waiting, Karkat, has always been waiting, for your stupidity. Think you made the corruption in the human's session..."

"How did you..." Karkat whispered, eyes still wide in shock, fear, denial.

"Oh, motherfucker, you never even could up and understand all the power and potential that a bard has got flowing in his motherfucking hands. Never could appreciate what I was trying to give us then. No, had to stop me instead of letting us all have all wicked kinds of peace, of freedom from him. Had to just up and stop me. Motherfuck. Don't you see, everything that's happening, it's your fault. You may have made the cancer of the human's session, but you were, are the cancer of ours, motherfucker."

There's a whisper in the air. Not of wind, but of his denial, over and over like it's some kind of mantra that will protect him from the wicked schoolfeeding, the wicked truth that is all up and happening here. Yet Gamzee can see, can motherfucking see that the brother all up and understands, all up and KNOWS, because Karkat's hand is on his arm now, begging for some kind of stability. Gamzee almost regrets not giving it him, because in shock, terror, acceptance, refusal to believe, some wicked emotion has weakened the brother's legs, and he's sliding down the tree that he's all up and pinned against. The only options are either to let him go, let the motherfucker escape without answering, without knowing fully what he's done, or to slide with him. And so Gamzee goes to one knee, both knees, stabilizing the fall until Karkat's sitting on the ground, looking all up and comatose. Then it's just easier to rest his weight on Karkat's legs than to keep holding himself up in a squat anymore, so Gamzee does, keeping Karkat pinned to the tree and now trapped between him and the ground. The only escape is waking, and the shock is the right kind to keep him asleep.

Good. Karkat isn't getting away without a real answer this time.

"Everything you did, it ruined us. Celebrate your ability as a destroyer, little troll, because it's all you can claim as your own. You've killed them, and you've killed us. Sooner, later, it doesn't matter. Happens either way. Now the only choice left is how you meet that death. What is it going to be, motherfucker? Throw yourself down the beast's gullet, or claim what moments you have left as your own?"

"Gamzee..." Karkat whispers at last, raising a hand to press it against Gamzee's cheek. Not quite a pap, but enough of one to make Gamzee growl, loud and viscous.

"Don't you even motherfucking dare doing that, brother. I ain't your moirail. I am your salvation, I am your destruction, I am your creation and your undoing. Pick your poison, motherfucker, because it's time to drink up."

"Oh Gamzee, what has happened to you? Who made you this way?"

"You did. I did. This whole motherfucking existence did," Gamzee spits, bitter. "But that don't even motherfucking matter anymore. This is the end, brother, and you've got a choice to make."

"No. I refuse. I fucking refuse to believe that this..."

"That this is what? Who I am? Who I was always meant to be? Brother, didn't you get schoolfed on that wicked truth long ago? Or did the lesson not stick?"

There's tears in his eyes, diluted crimson, and with them Gamzee knows the lesson took perfectly well. That Karkat's known it the entire time and just been denying it with every ounce of himself. As if by refusing it hard enough, he could make it anything other than true. Motherfucking idiot. What power does a mortal have over the god of rage Gamzee always was and was always meant to be?

"All that is left is death. Meet it tomorrow, meet it in a perigee. Meet it brave, or crying like a motherfucking wriggle. Doesn't matter to me. Just make your fucking choice."

Still he's looking hard into Karkat's eyes, so hard, looking for an answer that is yet to be voiced. Sure enough he finds it, but not the one he expected, or the one he wanted. No, what he finds is those old cracks he had half a sweep ago. Except they aren't cracks now. They are gashes, wide and angry and painful, and there ain't anything, any time, for them to heal. Something, sometime—Gamzee, now—broke him. Broke a will strong enough that it had managed to get everyone through the apocalypse and back, but not beyond. There was no strength left in those eyes. No ability to fight. No will to hide. There was nothing left, because Gamzee had offered him nothing. A choice between nothing, and nothing.

Motherfuck. Maybe that was what Caliborn had always meant for Gamzee to do. Why bother to break his opponents when he can let Gamzee break them for him? Because only Gamzee could do this to Karkat. No matter how beaten and bloody he would be, Karkat wouldn't give up. He'd fight to the final breath, beyond it if he could. Would fight alive, would fight dead. And yet Gamzee... he'd been able to break the will, maybe even break it beyond the limits of life and death.

Worse. He'd managed to break the last hope of rebellion Gamzee had been holding out. What was the point? He'd ruined his reward, ruined his friend, ruined everything. All that was left was service.

"Gamzee, please... What..."

One of his hands untangles itself from Karkat's turtleneck, flicks off to the side. No more than a thought and he could feel the weight of a sickle settling into his hand. The balance is good, flawless, and for a moment he wonders just how it was that a mutant like Karkat ever managed to get his hands on something so beautiful, so flawless. The next moment he's marveling in the pained awareness in Karkat's eyes as the cold steel slides easily between his ribs.

"No. Please, we can fix..."

"No, Karkat. There was never hope. Never a chance. It's better this way. Better may motherfucking hands than his. At least I can deny him this."

A quick flick of the wrist, and the blood starts to flow in earnest. Crimson gushing out like there is no tomorrow, and in truth there isn't. Slowly Gamzee stands, watching silently, impassively, as Karkat's hands scramble at his side, trying to stop the flow of beautiful crimson. He can't. Karkat knows that. Gamzee knows that. But both of them share that moment of wondering if maybe, just maybe, he can pull of the first real miracle in their lives and survive this.

Except it's not happening. Not going to happen. Already the crimson is spreading out around Karkat in a wet crimson pool, failing to seep into the dreamscape ground because neither of them is bothering to remember the fact that the ground is a greedy motherfucker that would happily suck up any moisture, even the most vital fluid of a troll's body. The ground doesn't care, it isn't particular.

Gamzee watches as he stands there, utterly silent, utterly cold. Every now and then he takes a step back, no point in staining his godly regalia before he absolutely needs to. A brother has to be presentable to be the messenger of the doom of all worlds. Having blood on him would just give away too much too fast. Where was the fun in that? At last, though, Karkat is still, his eyes already frosting to pure, impenetrable white. Soon he will rise, dead, and the next step will have to come. For now, though, Gamzee just waits and revels in the beauty of the face that has gone still and slack, almost as if Karkat was asleep, not dead.

Then the eyes flash open, solid and chilling white, and Karkat's on his feet. The dead are better at remembering than the living, Gamzee learned that long ago, and so before he can smile sadly at his friend, enemy, Karkat, there's a sickle in the motherfucker's hands.

"Come on then, motherfucker. Let's dance."

It's two and a half sweeps ago, with the same promise. Gamzee's hand flicks a bit to the right, and instead of a sickle there's juggling clubs, stained with the blood of the others. Soon there will be crimson too, speckling the club and making a beautiful image in its own right.

Either that or he'll be dead, dying in the bubble with no chance of rising alive. His death now, no motherfucking doubt in his mind that it would be just.

Maybe this was better, anyway. An eternity made of no time at all, dueling each other to a death that couldn't be given. Together, bound up in their own cycle until at last Caliborn comes and puts an end to it all.

Yes.

It would be a good ending to a bad story.

Gamzee smiles, spins his clubs, and beckons Karkat with his eyes. If he's going down, he'll doing it fighting, like he was meant to a sweep and a half ago.


End file.
